Religious rituals banned at Chandigarh’s Sukhna Lake
By IANSFriday, April 16, 2010
CHANDIGARH - In a bid to maintain ecological balance in and around the the famous Sukhna Lake, the administration Friday banned religious ceremonies and rituals in the area that has been declared a silence zone.
“There is noise and water pollution when people perform religious ceremonies at Sukhna. Therefore, the district magistrate has prohibited these ceremonies at this lake from today onwards,” the official spokesperson of the Chandigarh administration said here Friday.
He added: “This prohibition would also include floating of earthen lamps using oil and bursting of firecrackers. Bursting of crackers disturb the fauna in the adjoining wildlife sanctuary.”
The order will be effective till June 14, 2010.
The area around Sukhna Lake was declared a silence zone on Jan 19, 2005.
According to the latest findings of the engineering department, the landmark Sukhna Lake is shrinking fast and has been reduced to half of its original size since it was made in 1958.
The manmade lake, which is popular among tourists, boating enthusiasts and daily morning and evening walkers, has a capacity of only about 513 hectare metres against the original capacity of over 1,074 hectare metres when it was built.
“Hundreds of tonnes of silt that accumulated in the lake over the last many decades has substantially reduced its capacity. It is high time we start working to rescue it or else we will completely lose Sukhna Lake in the coming years,” a senior official of Chandigarh administration, requesting anonymity, told IANS.
